(ET)
India’s crude oil imports fell in July to their lowest since March 2010 as fuel demand slowed amid renewed coronavirus-induced lockdowns and closures of refinery units for maintenance, government data showed on Thursday.
Crude oil imports last month slumped about 36.4 per cent from a year earlier to 12.34 million tonnes, or 2.92 million barrels per day, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas showed. That marked a fourth straight monthly decline. Fuel demand in the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer also fell, posting a fifth consecutive year-on-year drop.
The country reported a record daily jump of 69,652 coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the total number of cases to 2.84 million, data from the federal health ministry showed. India is also Asia’s third-biggest economy, which imports and exports refined fuels. Refined product imports surged 46.4 per cent to 4.07 million tonnes year-on-year, mainly due to a sharp jump in India’s fuel oil imports. Fuel oil imports rose to record 1.22 million tonnes in July from 127,000 tonnes a year ago.
